| Phase | Description | Potential for change | Connectedness | Resilience |
| α (reorganization) |
- System widely open to reorganization
- Experimentation and initial establishment of actors, organizations and institutions, strongly subjected to evolutionary forces (i.e., competition, failure, survival) - Loss of resources (e.g., energy, information) is minimized, so that they become available in r phase (legacies) - Great uncertainty about options for the future and chance for unexpected forms of renewal |
Relatively high for future development. | Low. Internal regulation and control over external variability is weak. | High. Wide stability region and weak regulation around equilibria. |
|
r (exploitation and rapid growth) |
- Innovators perceive unlimited
opportunity - Bases for entrepreneurial and market competition are settled - External variability remains, favorable to entities more adapted to it (r-strategists) - Incremental exploitation of available resources and growth - Actors develop capacity for controlling external variability, hence reinforcing their own expansion - Future starts to be more predictable |
Declines as resources start and continue to be exploited. | Still low, but starts to increase, along with stability. | Remains high due to the adaptation to high variability. |
|
K (consolidation and conservation) |
- Growth rate slows down - Reduced opportunity and difficulties for new entrants - The future seems ever more certain and determined - Competitive edge shifts to those that control variability (K-strategists) - Increasing returns from efficiency (e.g., minimizing costs, streamlining operations) - Organizations become bureaucratized, rigid and internally focused (i.e., blind to external changes) |
Becomes high again in terms of stored capital | Increases as system becomes highly stable and over-connected in structural and organizational terms, hence more rigid (less flexible). | Rapidly declines, i.e., vulnerability to external disturbance starts to increase. |
|
Ω
(release) |
- Extreme structural rigidity that may trigger sudden
change, collapse and a “creative destruction” phase (Schumpeter
1950) - Chaotic behavior, uncertainty rules govern - All of these create the source for reorganization and the systems begin to acquire a new identity |
Suddenly declines as previously accumulated resources are abruptly released and exhausted. | High, but connections and regulatory controls are suddenly broken. | Low, but rapidly increases as the system moves towards the next α phase of reorganization. |